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Spike Lee's assistants did him no favor with his latest project "Miracle at St. Anna's," or otherwise someone would have had the gumption to tell him his well-intentioned story comes across more like a jumbled mess.

Clearly, Lee's efforts show a director who is passionate about the film's message and isn't just attaching his name to get a big paycheck. No, this is a labor of love but it's just as much of a labor to sit through.

The film is based on the novel of the same name about four black soldiers separated from their World War II regiment and forced to hide in an Italian village away from the ever present eyes of the Nazis all around them.

Lee opens the film with a postal worker killing a man who comes to his line. Investigators find a valuable statue at the suspect's home and a young reporter (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "Stop-Loss") eager for his first big break, visits the suspect to solve the mystery of why a seemingly decent man would kill a stranger in cold blood.

With the first big battle, where a squad of the all-black regiment is nearly slaughtered by a Nazi ambush is powerful stuff. The battle scenes can make or break a war film and Lee captures the action in such a way as to instantly steal your breath and only return it to you after the last bullet is fired.

And the aftermath – complete with soldiers lying in a shallow stream with blood flowing from their head into the water – makes for just as powerful an image as the battle itself.

It's at this point where the story deviates from what you might expect in a war movie, going from a decidedly less serious tone to a far more inconsistent one. One of the four soldiers, Tank (Omar Benson Miller, "Things We Lost in the Fire") befriends a child Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi) whom Tank believes is touched by God. Meanwhile, his fellow soldiers Stamps (Derek Luke, "Biker Boyz") and Bishop (Michael Ealy, "Barbershop") find themselves competing for the affection of a young Italian woman.

True to form, Lee gets strong performances out of his actors in his usual ensemble format with few stars and solid down the line work.

More and more filmmakers are proving that a good story can be told in under two hours and those that go beyond that glass ceiling are films that were in desperate need of some editing.

The story structure lacks focus and Lee's nonlinear method of telling the tale, veering off on various subplots of unimportant characters distracts from the film's main point: these soldiers trapped behind enemy lines and the mystery behind why the old man killed the guy in the post office. We eventually see how it all connects but not before a lot of wasted time.

Another problem is that James McBride, the same man who penned the novel, is the screenplay writer. If anyone is going to fight to keep every "important" moment from the source material in the movie it's the guy who wrote it.

But what works in a novel doesn't always work on the big screen when less truly is more. There are so many throwaway scenes – with flashbacks on top of flashbacks and numerous unimportant subplots that bog the film down and prove to be the film's minefields which Lee never manages to avoid.

The film is relentless – and not in a good way. Lee's plodding pace just continues to wear the audience down a little more as it progresses, making the viewing an excruciating affair given its 155 minutes running time.

Longtime Lee collaborator composer Terence Blanchard provides the most consistent aspect of the film with a beautiful score that features strong melodic tones that perfectly accompany each scene.

There is a really solid movie buried within "Miracle at St. Anna's."

You can see the glimpses of it but Lee lost his way trying to convey his vision for this project.

Rating: ´´

R; Drama; 155 minutes

Director: Spike Lee

Cast: Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller, Pierfrancesco Favino, Valentina Cervi and Matteo Sciabordi